I'm in "The Box"

I worked on this movie this week. I can't say too much about it but Wednesday I was in every scene except for one. I played a NASA employee. In a few of the scenes I was right in the action. I had to wear really bad 1970's clothes and shoes and they glued big sideburns on me...

From eagletribune.com...

Published: November 29, 2007

Star-struck in North Andover;
Town hosts makers of Cameron Diaz movie

A worker from a film crew breaks for lunch. The film crew has transformed a building in the former Lucent Technologies facility in North Andover into a 1970"s era Richmond, Va., police station and a NASA office. TIM JEAN/Staff Photo

By Drake Lucas, Staff writer
Eagle-Tribune


NORTH ANDOVER - "Are you in the movie?"

That was the question of the day at Osgood Landing yesterday, where filming started for Cameron Diaz's latest film, "The Box."

Vast, vacant space once used by Lucent Technologies has been transformed into movie sets depicting a NASA research laboratory and a Richmond, Va., police station during the 1970s.

Curious workers at Osgood Landing offices walked through to peek at the sets and try to catch a glimpse of the stars, including "Enchanted" actor James Marsden.

"Is she here?" they asked, meaning Diaz. No one would say for sure.

This is the second film to come to North Andover in a little more than a year. "The Game Plan" starring Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, filmed at Lawrence Municipal
Airport last year.

"It sounds like we are starting to be a little nexus," said Town Manager Mark Rees. He said both the wide open space at Osgood Landing and the quaint Old Center would be good spots for filming, something he said goes through the state. "Certainly we want to work with them to keep North Andover on the map for Hollywood-type stuff," he said.

Ellen Keller, vice president of commercial real estate for Osgood Landing, said a couple of commercials have also been filmed at the sprawling 1.5 million-square-foot complex. "Why not?" she said. "The space can be used for so many things."

The site is listed on Web sites where location scouts search for places to film.

"I always thought this place would be perfect for that. We should get more movies to come here," said Selectman Rosemary Smedile as she toured the set yesterday with Rees, police Chief Richard Stanley, Lt. John Carney and Community Development Director Curt Bellavance. Stanley stood on the set of the 1970s Richmond police station and nodded. "Looks like home," he said, referring to the Main Street police station that he has been trying to upgrade for decades. He said his police station could have been used for the set instead.

"The Box" is a mystery, described on the IMDB Web site as a movie about a troubled married couple who find a small wooden box on their doorstep. They open it and become instantly wealthy. What they don't know is the box also kills someone they don't know.

Silence was enforced on the set as the film crew and spectators yesterday watched Marsden rehearse a scene at the NASA office where his character works. His character is married to Diaz's character.

Bellavance said many workers at the town office spent their lunch breaks watching filming, or at least have taken a quick walk through the sets.

Actors and extras were easily recognizable in their '70s-era plaid pants and Burt Reynolds-style mustaches as compared with observers tiptoeing around the set. Filming is scheduled to continue through Friday.

"It's amazing to see this happening," said Bernadette Curran, Community Development administrative assistant who was headed in to look at the sets with her 12-year-old daughter, Melissa. "Nothing like this happens in North Andover usually," she said.

Other workers in the building said they didn't even realize the sets were being put up until today because the building is so big. Sherri Foy, who works at Access, which does business to business telemarketing, said she saw a sign last week that said "Extras," but she didn't realize what it was about. When she saw a sign today that said "Crew," she knew something was going on. "I'm star-struck," said Foy of Andover after walking through the sets. "This is so exciting."

Rose Aiello of Hampstead, N.H., and Shirley Coutu of Windham, N.H., just happened to pick yesterday to stop by and see the building, once Western Electric, where
they used to work. "Are you in the movie?" they asked as people came into the lobby to take breaks. They said they were surprised they could just walk in - something they couldn't do when they worked there. They were sad to see the building had so much empty space, but were still interested in the movie.

"It's going to be some sci-fi film," Aiello said. "We're going to look out for it," Coutu said.

Festival of Christmas Trees

I went to the annual Festival of Trees last week. Over 200 decorated trees in all shapes and sizes and colors and themes. Trees are donated by area businesses and organizations such as my high school and Bugaboo Creek. You can buy raffle tickets to win whatever tree(s) you want.

Here is a video from my phone...

Festival of Christmas Trees

I went to the annual Festival of Trees last week. Over 200 decorated trees in all shapes and sizes and colors and themes. Trees are donated by area businesses and organizations such as my high school and Bugaboo Creek. You can buy raffle tickets to win whatever tree(s) you want.

Here is a video from my phone...

Halloween 2007/"I'm Too Fat"

My mom found this fat suit at a store and bought it. I wore it to a costume party and won first place - $50!



I did a cameo appearance with it on TV on Halloween morning...



For Halloween night my mom dressed as a witch and we had a smoke/fog machine set up at the house along with some flashing lights and loud spooky sound effects playing. But none of that scared the kids. What scared them was me in my fat suit...



The neighbors across the street kicked our ass with their Halloween display. They were sneaky about it and didn't set it up until Halloween afternoon so we had no idea they were going to do any of this. I guess now we have a challenge for next year...

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A couple of days later my mom suggested that I use it for a video to my old song "I'm Too Fat"...

Another movie and another play

Not much detail here but several weeks ago I did a few scenes in the movie Bachelor No. 2 starring Dane Cook and Kate Hudson. In once scene I was walking by them in a park while they were jogging and in another I was walking down the street while Dane was talking with Jason Biggs.

This week I did a couple of plays. I had the lead role in an episode of The Saint and a co-lead role in an episode of Our Miss Brooks.

I witnessed a crash, went to a radio show, and hit Hooters 74

This one is about two months overdue. So much happened and it was a really great trip down to NY with my friends Rascal, James, Leadbelly, and PMS. On the way down we saw a roll-over accident on I-95 in CT. We didn't actually see it flip but I saw it as it was settling into the woods in a ditch on the left. Lots of dust and dirt blew all around. I had seen things like that before so I knew what was going on right away and started to think about pulling over. Some of my friends had been smoking so they were paranoid and didn't really want me to stop, however as we got closer and I saw how badly crushed the car was, not pulling over was simply not an option in my mind.

Rascal called 911. I pulled over a few hundred feet past the car in case it caught fire as well as to keep far enough away from police and emergency vehicles who would be coming to the scene. And I opened the windows and sunroof so my car could air out and hopefully ease the paranoia.

As Rascal and I walked to the car and we could see the amount of damage, I stopped for a second - I was afraid that we could see someone dead or decapitated stuck inside, and that was not a vision that I wanted to have for the weekend. But I think we smelled a faint odor of gas, so we would have had to check inside just in case someone one was in there. Luckily no one was. Leadbelly went out to the back of the car where the young female driver was crawling out of the wreckage. She was disoriented and clearly scared and in pain but she assured us that she was the only person in the car. By this point some other cars had pulled over as well and some of these people were just with this girl at work so they confirmed that she was alone.

Leadbelly deserves a gold star. He stayed with her, comforting her, holding her hand, and telling her not to worry. He touched her legs and her arms so she could know that she wasn't paralyzed or anything like that. We waited until all the emergency vehicles got on scene and then we took off for the rest of the trip.

I don't remember what time we made it to Shadow's house in Queens but it was sometime in the wee hours of the morning. White Castle was closed. So we hung out at his house and drank some Jagermeister and played Guitar Hero for a few hours. I talked with his dad who told me about meeting JFK once. I eventually went to sleep around 4:30 and was woken up around 7:30 to start the day.

We hit the road and met some people along the way enroute to the second annual FBA softball game in Hartsdale, NY. It was a very fun ride up whatever parkway - a food-fight erupted between people in my car and people in Shadow's car. It started quickly and I was driving so I wasn't seeing everything unfold but I think it started because PMS had the munchies. He was in Shadow's car but all the snacks and stuff were in my car. So Leadbelly threw a couple packs of Goldfish out of the window of my car and into Shadow's car. Great aim. One thing led to another and more food and bottles of water were thrown back and forth between the two moving cars driving alongside each other. There was so much stuff thrown around and it went on for several minutes. I am surprised that the people behind us didn't call the cops (or maybe they did?) because to outsiders I am sure that it looked like we were at war with each other.

I paid little attention to the actual softball games. I was there to socialize and see a bunch of friends whom had traveled from all over the country. The high-point for me was meeting Sam from the Than & Sam Show and the Opie & Anthony Show. I had invited him to come to the game and was very pleasantly surprised to see him show up. I think we talked for a few hours. I was loving it. This is a pic of me and Rascal and Sam and me:

After the game most people went to an area hotel and went out for dinner and drinks. But I went down to Manhattan with Ace to visit the Than & Sam radio show. Coming from a background in broadcasting and being a huge fan of theirs, this was by far one of the best parts of my entire summer this year. It was soooooo much fun for me! This is a video that Ace took of me on the show: http://youtube.com/watch?v=s5K-dznFZaQ

Afterwards we drove around the city a little and drove by the Statue of Liberty and then headed out to Wayne, NJ so I could go to my 74th different Hooters:



After that it was time to pick up the others guys and head home. An awesome weekend.

The Traveling Virus Tailgate Party at the Tweeter Center

I think it was a great turnout (a couple hundred people!) and lots of fun. I really enjoyed meeting people - I'm sorry that I didn't get to meet everyone but I tried.

I was VERY bummed out that the police confiscated my beer ball and shut down our contests after the Rock Scream competition, but it was still a fun time anyway. And thanks to Danny and Travis for judging the Rock Screams. :)

I should also thank Rascal for getting the RV and thank Shadow for helping me organize stuff.

Here is a video of Opie signing our banner, courtesy of Ace Danger. Sadly I wasn't there when he came by (I missed him at my own party!! DAMMIT!) because I got recruited to work inside the venue at a baseball tossing booth.

Opie visits Rascal's RV

Rush - Mansfield, MA 6/27/07

It was a relatively boring show. It started off strong with Limelight and then an older obscure song or two and Free Will several songs later. That was followed by some new songs that didn't really go over very well and a few more obscure things.

About an hour into the show was intermission, after intermission was five or six more brand new songs. Ugh. All slow or midtempo. A few of them kinda grooved but not many people seemed extremely interested.

Then came Subdivisions which got everyone screaming and jumping for joy...I think probably because it was the first familiar song in almost an hour. Then more slow songs. People started leaving.

My buddies wanted to leave so I went online and looked up some recent setlists to see what would be ahead: a drum solo, more new stuff, Tom Sawyer, and YYZ for the encore. But that was another forty-five minutes away and not really compelling enough to want to sit through the other shit in between so they left. I held out another ten minutes to confirm the setlist was similar to the ones I had looked up. I left around 10:20 during the drum solo. It just wasn't worth it. And it was a boring drum solo from what I saw and heard on the way out.

A total of nine new songs was a bit much. Especially so many of them all in a row. That was just stupid IMHO. If it wasn't for that I would have enjoyed it more. I would have also enjoyed stuff like Working Man and 2112 and Distant Early Warning.

Here is a tip for the band: when the drummer looks like he is so unhappy to be there, don't aim close-up cameras on him. As fans we like to think that our favorite bands are having some kind of fun up there on stage, we don't want to see the guys looking like they're ready to cry or bored with us or whatever his problem was. Just don't bother showing them at all if they're going to be like that.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad - the sound mix was pretty much perfect and I was very happy to see Geddy playing way more bass than keyboards as opposed to other times I've seen him play keys most of the show. There is never a substitute for him plucking the strings and rocking out. So at least I was happy about that.

RIP Hooters

Bankruptcy has claimed the life of all of the Hooters locations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and Rhode Island. They were killed by some upstate NY locations that drowned the franchisee in debt.

I am extremely saddened by the news. The closest location to me is now 111 miles away from me in CT.

Another Movie, Airplanes, Another Play, Motorcycles, and a Helicopter

Three weeks ago I went to Providence ago for a scene in an upcoming movie called 27 Dresses. It stars Katherine Heigl from Grey's Anatomy and it should be out early next year. This is my fourth film in the post ten months and the second film in a row in which my car was used - my role in this is "Pedestrian With Car" which pretty much meant that I won't be seen at all because I drove around the block for about 3. 5 hours between a few other cars and several NYC taxis. At one point I wondered about those cabs - were they actually real NYC cabs or something created by the props department? If they were real cabs, how did they get up to Providence? Were they driven up separately or on a car carrier? I would think that a car carrier would have raised a few eyebrows along the way since it's not every day that you see a car carrier full of NYC taxis.

The Tuesday after that I went flying for the first time since November 2005. I flew down to the Cape and along the South Coast. I hope to get myself back into flying more often.


Last Wednesday I was in a play - an episode of "Duffy's Tavern". I was funny. This is our promo pic...

Last Saturday I went to Motorcycle Week in Laconia and saw some awesome bikes and rode in a helicopter around Weirs Beach. The first real standout was this Jägermeister bike. It has a Jägermeister machine on the back and Jägermeister stuff all over it. There were the typical assortments of Harley's and rice-rockets as well as a prototype of a bike that has a 10-cylinder Dodge Viper engine that supposedly get up to 400-something MPH! SICK! NO thanks! But this bike shaped like the back of a hot chick was cool:


Last Sunday I took my parents to the casino in RI for Father's Day. The slot machines were pretty stingy but my mom won $77 betting a simulcast horse race which almost didn't get bet because I had to use an electronic wagering system that I had never seen before with less than a minute to post time. I would have gotten so much shit if I blew the bet. We ate at the buffet which was plentiful and looked great, but aside from just a few items, pretty much everything was bland and almost tasteless. Even my parents felt the same way, and they never complain about eating in restaurants. But compared the full-service restaurants that had chicken wing appetizers for $11.50 and pasta with clam sauce for $21.50 and an Italian cold-cut sandwich for $11.50, the price was right I guess.

Yesterday started with a cooking contest at All Things Sicilian. After that I went to a ribfest in NH where I ate a few ribs and deep-fried Oreos, sampled some BBQ sauces, and saw an aerial stunt show. From there I went to a poker party. That was the second night in a row that I didn't get home until about four in the morning.

Today I am tired.

Hooters #73

In Manchester, CT I went to my 73rd Hooters location yesterday.

It was a spur of the moment idea while I was driving home from my cousin's graduation and commissioning at West Point.

My buddy Schnit lives in the area and came by to take this pic.

Now, keep in mind that I am not saying that that I've been to this Hooters location 73 times...no no no...I have been to 73 different Hooters locations at least one time each.

Here is a little background on some of my previous Hooters visits:

• 5 were in the Denver area in 2000
• 11 were in South Florida in 2001
• 7 were around the Houston area in a three-day trip in 2002
• My 45th was the Grand Opening of the Sugarland, TX location where I was first person served a beer on Opening Day
• I was at the Grand Opening of the Cape Cod Hooters in 2003
• 9 locations were during a four-day trip to southern California in 2003

While at Hooters in Daytona with my friend Chris in 1999, I saw a t-shirt: "Hooters World Tour". On the back it had a list of cities, just like a concert t-shirt would have. While looking at that list, I realized that I had been to a bunch of those locations already so I decided that I would embark on a world tour of my own.

In 2003 Hooters ran a contest where anyone who visited 20 different Hooters in one year would win a party for 20 people with 200 wings. They gave out little "passport" books that we had to have stamped at each of the different locations we went to.

Why have I done all this? Well, the last line of the menu at Hooters pretty much sums it all up: "Hooters makes you happy". :)

You can check out some other Hooters pics here.

The upcoming movie "21"

As I sit here writing this I am waiting for it to get dark so the movie shoot I am on can continue. I've been here seven hours (an hour away from overtime rate!) and I've worked about 90 minutes so far. The first 4.5 were really tough: snack-break followed by lunch. That was it. No work, just sit around and wait and eat (and get paid for it).

In the scene we did so far I walked past the main character over and over again. In the scene we are waiting to do I will be driving down the street in my truck. At least I will be warm and comfy.

Ooh, they just called me, gotta go...more later...

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I can't believe I went to Pink and Justin Timberlake...after drinking a .8 gallon beer

The show was amazing. Seriously. Pink was a definite crowd-pleaser and Justin worked hard for his money. He either strummed guitar or played organ or piano for about half the songs. For the other half he was non-stop dancing and working the crowd. I got tired just watching him.

His band was rocking: two guitar players, two drummers, two keyboard players, a shitload of hot dancers and singers. The guitars and drums gave many of the songs a harder edge. Like Sexy Back and Cry Me A River, they each had kind of crunchy guitar parts to make them kind of rock. I didn't even recognize a couple of songs at first.

Justin's set was over two hours (I think about 2:20-2:25) including about a 15 or 20 minute intermission while DJ/singer/producer-extraordinaire Timbaland did some stuff. The show didn't end until around 11:30 which is usually curfew-breaking and into O.T. for union stage crews around here.

All for only an $85 highest ticket price.

I am glad that I didn't see him last month in Boston because I would have been compelled to go see this show in Manchester, NH as well. It was that good.

I can't remember the last time I was hit on by so many girls. Not just the wise-asses saying things like "why are you at a concert like this? I bet you can't even name two of his songs" and the underaged "can you buy beer for me?" girls. I mean like real girls with no agenda. I was actually desirable for some reason. :D

Before the show Matty and I went to a tavern in Manchester and had this beer tower that is over 101 ounces!